32 ms·
With remote work plan, Facebook dashes hopes of paycheck arbitrage
- buboard 6y ago.
- tenaciousDaniel 6y agoSome friends of mine who live in NYC are actually considering "renting" their addresses for remote employees who get shafted like this. From my perspective, it's the same as registering your business address in Delaware to take advantage of their low tax rates.
- dastx 6y agoWatch as companies start lobbying to make this illegal.
- harryh 6y agoIt's already illegal to lie in a contract. It's called fraud.
- adrr 6y agoIt probably is illegal due to issues with taxes. If I put my address in Seattle,wa but i am residing in Astoria, Oregon. I owe Oregon income tax
- Joof 6y agoJust route all your work through your home in Seattle!
- hn_throwaway_99 6y agoFor tax purposes, that is already illegal. I.e. most (all?) states determine your residency based on where you actually sleep a majority of the year. My guess is that FB will base it on where you claim residency for tax purposes, so if you lie about it you're committing tax fraud.
- mullen 6y agoIn a round about way, is this not already illegal? If I live in Ohio but I represent myself to my employer that I live in NYC, am I not committing state income tax fraud against Ohio? NYC would probably love this since people who don't live in NYC and don't use its services pay NYC taxes, but Ohio would hate this because the person lives in Ohio and pays no state taxes. EDITED: Also, you could not get a driver's license in Ohio since you have to live there to get one. Forget about registering cars, owning property and paying for anything with a credit card in your own name.
- BurningFrog 6y agoYou have a lot of arbitrage to play with just inside California.
- Gibbon1 6y agoOh yeah just go online and search for houses under $250k. A bunch are out in the boondocks with bad internet, but not all of them.
- neutronicus 6y agoOne hopes lawmakers would let it continue for irony's sake
- jbroman 6y agoIt seems pretty unwise to defraud your employer like that.
- dastx 6y agoWhy is it defrauding though? They want to lower your salary despite you having proven that you're worth that salary.
- jbroman 6y agoBecause by doing this you have misrepresented the truth in order to extract more money from your employer than you agreed (presumably, in your employment contract). (As I commented elsewhere, whether you think paying by local cost of living is the right policy is valid to debate but isn't the point here.)
- harryh 6y agoBecause it's lying. That's what fraud is. "But I had a good reason for lying!" is not a defense.
- hn_throwaway_99 6y agoCome on, this is just ridiculous. "Why can't I lie to my employer in a contractual agreement if they did something I don't like?" I mean, the vast, vast majority of FB employees can easily get jobs with other companies. If you don't like it, leave.
- booleandilemma 6y ago
- sturgill 6y agoIgnoring any potential ethical questions, I wonder how that works for state tax purposes?
- zests 6y agoI’m pretty sure you pay taxes to the state you physically are in while doing the work. So if you leave NY temporarily and work remotely from FL you will no longer have income tax while you are in FL.
- x3n0ph3n3 6y agoBut then you have to prove to NY that you were in FL. States like NY and CA will claw every dollar they can from you and if they see you're getting paid to an in-state address, good luck proving you weren't actually in-state. You likely won't be able to get back the money your company automatically deducted from your paycheck.
- coredog64 6y agoNot tax advice, so consult your own professional preparer: NY state has first dollar claim if your employer says your job is in NY regardless of your physical address. If, for example, you live in NJ but commute into NY, you’re paying NY state tax with no opt-out. NJ credits residents for NY taxes but then gets their money via property taxes. NYC is even crazier, with part time residents going so far as to take daily pictures of themselves with local papers to prove that they reside outside the city more than half the year to avoid NYC income tax.
- x3n0ph3n3 6y agoThey end up having to pay NY state taxes since that's what your employer is reporting.
- dionidium 6y agoYou pay state taxes based on where you actually lived, not on where you say you lived, not on where you identify as having lived, not on what you perceive to be your main residence, and not on where you own a PO box. You pay state taxes based on where you actually lived, as in where your physical body was in space and time. And your employer obviously has this information for tax withholding.
- bobthepanda 6y agoNYC in particular might not be a good location for this, since if your W2 lists NYC you are subject to three income taxes (fed, state, city). Seattle would probably be a better choice, as a high-wage, relative low-tax city.
- lumost 6y agoIt'll be tricky for employers to enforce too - surely you'll have people who "live" in SF but travel 60-70% of the time to Colorado. Flying back to the bay for 2 days a week is probably a reasonable CoL arbitrage if you only need housing for 2 days.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- harryh 6y agoNo one registers a business address in Delaware to take advantage of their low taxes. Companies, like people, must pay state and local taxes based on their physical location.
- coredog64 6y agoRight. Delaware is attractive for their business-friendly legal environment.
- dionidium 6y ago> From my perspective, it's the same as registering your business address in Delaware to take advantage of their low tax rates. State tax authorities do not share this perspective.
- sna1l 6y agoI would imagine that because the company is withholding (and reporting) tax at a state level, you'd have to end up paying tax in whatever state you were claiming to live in anyways?
- VonGuard 6y agoThis makes sense in the hiring process, but once you've hired someone, it's a super dick move to lower their salary in spite of their performance. Seems like the sort of decision a robot would make.
- jbroman 6y agoThis is consistent with what major tech companies do today when an employee relocates (or are simply hired in a less pricey region). Whether or not you agree that employees should be paid differently depending on cost of living where they reside, it isn't new.
- AmericanChopper 6y agoThis sort of scaling is simply a (rather flimsy) cover for the natural consequences of moving to remote work. If employees in the large metros have to start competing with workers from everywhere else, the salaries are going to start falling. A worker in rural Mississippi is going to expect a much lower salary than an equivalently skilled worker in Palo Alto, and a worker in Manila would expect even less again. Remote work puts significant downward pressure on salaries. This is simply an attempt to offset that. But if you think a hiring manager faced with having to choose between hiring somebody on a big metro salary vs a small rural one is going to be completely uninfluenced, then I’ve got news for you...
- meowtimemania 6y agohonestly as a front end dev, I don’t think what I do is that difficult and I’m overpaid. I feel a little nervous that with remote work I won’t be overpaid in the future
- AmericanChopper 6y agoJobs aren’t paid according to how difficult they are, they’re paid by supply and demand. Employers want to pay as little as possible, but they have to compete with other companies to hire staff from the finite labor pool. Employees want to be paid as much as possible, but have to compete with each other for the finite number of positions available with employers. Remote work simply means that for any remote position, employees will have more candidates to compete with, which will drive the cost of labor (salaries) down, especially if they’re competing with candidates willing to take a much lower salary due to living in a much cheaper place.
- untilHellbanned 6y agowill be interesting to see the salary hacks employees come up with
- samsonradu 6y agoHow can/will the employer check whether the stated location of its emloyees is correct? This is indeed a complex categorisation. What really defines my location in relation to remote work? Since I’m not bound to one physical location anymore I can split my time between different places. I might move every 6 months, what then?
- mullen 6y agoVPN to a computer, on a cable modem, that is physically located in SF. Make sure to never use your personal phone to check email.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- harryh 6y agoState tax authorities have dealt with these questions for decades. There are well understood answers.
- samsonradu 6y agoStill, working remotely hasn't been around for decades, is it all so straightforward? From an EU perspective I can assure you it's a deep mess. People have a different, long-term relationship with the tax authorities because 'you're not going anywhere' and this makes it possible to settle at a later time. Also tax authorities take action in retrospect specially because things are difficult to prove on-the-spot, but Facebook will need to pay you next month and next year you might be working somewhere else. How will they be able avoid over/underpaying you? https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-12/stranded-super-rich-confront-tax-chaos-after-pandemic-lockdowns https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-12/stranded-...
- 6y ago
- adrr 6y agoIs it required by law so the employer pays the appropriate payroll tax and abides by local labor laws?
- Zenbit_UX 6y agoI don't know how the US works, but in Canada I've had jobs where the employer took no taxes off and I had to pay them myself at the end of the year. I loved it, I can understand why many can't handle it though but the increase in cash flow actually increases your investment opportunities short term. If this is true for the US too then Facebook is full of shit and using this as a weak argument for why they have to know if you snuck out of the city to go live in a cheaper area.
- alistairSH 6y agoYes, the location tracking (wether that be simply asking, or IP checks, etc) is mostly for regulatory compliance. Salaries adjusted by region is pretty common. My employer does it. My wife's employer does it. Etc.
- christiansakai 6y agoI can smell the next SaaS offering: pobox.me, rent a po box and real address and take your salary to the next level!
- snemvalts 6y ago> Zuckerberg said Facebook will monitor adherence by checking where employees access its VPN. bundle that with a VPN as well.
- memset 6y agoThis is essentially what Delaware C-Corps do in order to avail themselves of regional regulations.
- vidanay 6y agoThis is a excellent point. What state is FB incorporated in?
- egypturnash 6y agoLooks like... Delaware! https://www.delawareinc.com/blog/facebook-is-a-delaware-corporation/ https://www.delawareinc.com/blog/facebook-is-a-delaware-corp...
- christiansakai 6y agoWhoa!
- bisRepetita 6y agoFrom the article: "Zuckerberg said Facebook will monitor adherence by checking where employees access its VPN. Facebook also uses its own apps' to track employee locations" Allegedly because: "Employees who attempt to wiggle around those compensation adjustments will be subject to “severe ramifications,” he said, as the company needs to account for employee locations to avoid violating tax laws."
- deleted 6y ago
- one2know 6y agoFacebook is afraid of a Facebook Boise office , Facebook Salt Lake City office, Facebook Houston office, etc. Their office locations are based on the political preferences of their board members and management. With no offices, they can't control the political makeup of the company.
- joshuamorton 6y agoCurrent employees moving to conservative areas would result in those places becoming more liberal.
- beervirus 6y agoAt first. Some employees might adjust their own thinking once they've escaped the political monoculture that is SF.
- mnm1 6y agoIndeed. Loss of intelligence is always a real problem when one is surrounded by stupidity.
- Barrin92 6y agoIt's the modern technological economy that produces the political culture of SF rather than the other way around. Marx' idiom of "all that is solid melts into air" is relevant here, tech and the modern urban economy aren't liberal by accident. They're liberal because technology and the logic of economic development itself erodes barriers. The political and economic divide isn't some artefact that happened by accident and when all the tech people bring their capital and tech to conservative regions they'll see the light and become god fearing Christians, it's the regions that will undergo the same cultural change as any other region absorbed into the modern economy.
- beervirus 6y agoOr maybe it’s because if you work for FAANG you are not allowed to have conservative views out loud.
- harrisonjackson 6y agoHow will this work for digital nomads? Same as wherever they pay state taxes, I guess.
- webkike 6y agoI’m currently living rent free at my parents place in Palo Alto. Can you imagine how much more Facebook would pay me than someone renting in a poorer neighborhood?
- taurath 6y agoThis is an extremely important point. Everyone will rush to the cheapest part of the most expensive areas.
- nojito 6y agoThis is literally how gentrification starts.
- harryh 6y agoWhile the cost of rent is certainly one aspect of where people choose to live, it certainly isn't the only aspect. Tons of people choose to pay more to live in more expensive areas because they find them nicer to live in.
- taurath 6y agoAnd people who want to retire early or buy rather than rent but still live in a nice area will flock to low income areas now that they don’t have to commute into the office.
- belltaco 6y agoIsn't that already the case regardless of remote work? You get paid more in expensive areas, and want to minimize your costs.
- sershe 6y agoHow is East Palo Alto doing? Serious question, when I was still in SFBA I think the houses there were 2 times cheaper than across the highway and the joke was the weather forecast goes "Palo Alto sunny, East Palo Alto sunny, stray bullets". I was wondering if I should buy a rental house then (~2013)...
- fogetti 6y agoSarcasm on Offshoring is only allowed for corporations, not for employees. What did those pesky peasants think? Sarcasm off
- stared 6y agoDoes it work both ways? If so, here is a cheat sheet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi... Enjoy!
- baxtr 6y agoThis will accrue many negative comments here. I have to say that I can understand the reasoning behind this. I think it’s fair. I would expect that they increase the salary if you move to a more expensive place.
- ende 6y ago> I would expect that they increase the salary if you move to a more expensive place. lol
- w0m 6y agomy last company was a fairly global fortune 100. Our intranet had a hard list of salary adjustments they pertained globally for internal transfers per site. if I moved from a low COL area to SF, I got a 15% raise. SF to my office took a 15% hit. the transfer ratios were all (internally) public knowledge.
- learnstats2 6y ago>they increase the salary if you move to a more expensive place. At the moment, they increase the salary if they require you to move to a more expensive place. Why will they continue to pay you more if it's no longer required?
- losteric 6y agoDoes the value you create for the company depend on location? I don't think it's fair for businesses to extract more profit from me because I live in a cheaper area than my coworkers
- temporalparts 6y agoCost of living and taxes are very real. CA income taxes are > 10%. Some states have 0% income tax. On that basis alone, CA employees should make 10% more than those places without income tax. Then there's cost of living, rent, etc. You can legitimately earn more while being paid less by moving to a lower cost location.
- 6y ago
- sschueller 6y agoWell a Swiss court just ruled that companies need to compensate (including part of the rent) employees if they are home officed. [1] Companies taking advantage of this and thinking they can save money should think again. [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nzz.ch/amp/schweiz/arbeitgeber-muessen-einen-teil-der-wohnungsmiete-uebernehmen-wenn-sie-ihre-mitarbeiter-ins-home-office-schicken-ld.1557921 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nzz.ch/amp/schweiz/arbeitge...
- lykr0n 6y agoThat is fair. If I'm using my personal car for work, I'm reimbursed. Same thing should be done for business use at home. My increase in electricity and internet usage should be covered.
- harryh 6y agoIn practice this can't really be enforced. Say you were making $200k but then a law was passed that companies have to reimburse you for 20k of "home office expenses" per year. Guess what, now your salary is 180k + the reimbursement! Oh, you're saying you could pass a law against that too? OK, then what happens to new hires. They're gonna get 180k. You can't really stop that. At the end of the day, salaries will be set by the market. Companies are price takers just like employees.
- lonelappde 6y agoTake care not to conflate the "market" which applies when it benefits me over everyone else, with "fairness" which applies whenever it benefits me over everyot else.
- lonelappde 6y agoTake care not to conflate the "market" which applies when it benefits me over everyone else, with "fairness" which applies whenever it benefits me over everyone else.
- tester89 6y ago
- booleandilemma 6y agoSo no working for Facebook and moving to Vietnam to live like a king then.
- herval 6y agoA nocturnal king, that has to work midnight to 8am to keep up with the rest of the team, if that’s your thing :) I lived like that for a month (working on a fully remote company, but the majority of the people were on US timezones). It’s not for everyone.
- stephenr 6y agoWorkers of a known unscrupulous Human cockroach are going to be affected by the unscrupulousness of their employer. Full story at 11.
- lykr0n 6y agoEvery company will do this. Where I work we had a major effort to normalize salaries and make sure base salaries before localization were consistent across demographics. Most governments will do the exact same time. You have a salary band and step, and then get an additional % based on location.
- stephenr 6y agoI’d expect most companies to aim their salaries at a location relative amount. I doubt all would cut someone’s pay because they moved.
- amiga_500 6y agoIf I could chose one thing to magically "shove" into people's brains, it would be "how prices are set". Labour costs are not "value added less some 'fair' amount" that your employer keeps. This knowledge would change the way people behave, and let them make very different political decisions. It would be earth shaking!
- daenz 6y agoAre we going to see a exodus of high-income newly-remote workers to lower-income locations? This seems devastating to cities that have become dependent on the economic power these workers bring, but at the same time, it could bring new life to poorer areas of the country.
- taurath 6y agoNah it just means more gentrification in rich areas.
- empath75 6y agoIf we’re moving to a remote first world, long term it will flatten out salaries regardless of location, but short term, companies will stop hiring in expensive locations as much.
- tasty_freeze 6y agoWhen I moved from SF bay area to Austin, my employer didn't lower my salary, but for a few years my yearly increases were small compared to my performance review until my pay grade was right for my pay grade and location combination. This was a nice way to do it because my salary has always been monotonically increasing, and I wasn't offended that my increases were small for a few years because I knew why it was happening.
- VonGuard 6y agoThis right here is the way to deal with the problem. Lowering a salary should only happen if someone is a fuckup or reduces the amount of work they have to do. Doing it over time like this is super classy.
- esrauch 6y agoI don't know, if the same job gets paid less in Austin then it's not really fair for someone who transfers from SF to Austin to make more than someone who was just in Austin all long. If someone moved from Austin to SF you'd just pay them less than a new hire in SF? At Google they just openly adjust your salary if you move between cities; move from NYC to Atlanta and you'll take a bit hit, move back for the reciprocal instant raise.
- flocial 6y agoThis sounds great but I wonder how much of that was employer's discretion? I imagine your work was that valuable but perhaps a less productive engineer might get a different "package". Regardless of the rational and pragmatic reasons behind salary adjustments for cost of location adjustments, a double digit X% cut would be very demotivating for most people psychologically.
- morgante 6y agoPeople seem to be missing that this is entirely voluntary. Facebook isn't forcing people to accept a pay cut, just saying that if you choose to move then your salary will be cut. This has been SOP at big tech companies for years. If you choose to move to a cheaper location, your salary will be adjusted to the new market rate. I know plenty of people who have gone through this and nobody felt demotivated. They all chose to move and were well aware of the salary cut when they made that choice.
- taurath 6y agoWhat a great way to make people rush to the cheapest and least convenient parts of the highest income areas, further displacing poor people.
- BurningFrog 6y agoI can only be in one place at a time, so my displacement power is constant.
- PunchTornado 6y agosome people just complain. if you're living in a rich neighborhood, they complain, if you live in a poor neighborrhod, they complain. wfh? complain. working in the office, not good either. because poor people and climate change and discrimination.
- taurath 6y agoYou're right, that there are plenty of people who will complain no matter what. I think its reasonable from the perspective of someone who's say, a schoolteacher in San Mateo of 30 years that has to live and commute from Richmond or Tracy? Building lots more housing would be the best way to make things equitable at least.
- PunchTornado 6y agoI don't think high income individuals will try to save a few $ and live in a high crime neighborhood with no hipster 10$ coffee in sight.
- MiroF 6y agoWhy not? I am, and most worrying about "high crime" neighborhoods is pearl-grabbing by people who are afraid of visible poverty anyways.
- proverbialbunny 6y agoHigh crime? I live in suburb 2 blocks from a forested area with trails in a nice area and I'm paying $700 a month in the SF/Bay Area. The crime in the area I'm in is lower than most of the bay area because the area gets overlooked. The downside is there are less high end food options, but still some pretty good options. Oh, and the allergies. I get allergies. Too much nature. But it's nice.
- daenz 6y agoHere in Washington, a Seattle salary of $150k is worth around $315k in Spokane. And that's in the same state. https://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/spokane-wa/seattle-wa/150000 https://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/spokane-wa/seattle...
- amiga_500 6y agoSo this depends on how they compute this. If it's not that granular you might be able to live in a low cost location that is ranked as a higher cost location by the FB "salary grid". Having that grid information would be very useful to an individual when negotiating.
- AmericanChopper 6y agoThe cost of living scaling doesn’t cover the entire salary. Only about 30% of my salary goes towards cost of living, more than half of it goes to savings. If my salary was scaled from Seattle to Spokane levels, my savings at retirement would be enormously impacted. That sort of cost of living also doesn’t account for a huge amount of other things too. Having a holiday in Bali costs the same whether you depart from Spokane or Seattle (probably slightly more departing from Spokane actually, when you account for transport from Spokane to SeaTac). Buying a new 4K big screen costs the same in Spokane as it does in Seattle. Living in Spokane doesn’t make your kids college cost less either.
- hn_throwaway_99 6y agoAgreed, that bestplaces COLA calculator is bizarre. On one hand I think it's great that it breaks down relative costs by area - like you say, it's clear the difference in cost between Spokane and Seattle is almost entirely due to housing. But then it fails to take into account the percentage of income that actually goes towards housing. If you make 200k and move to a place where the primary difference is housing costs (say 2x housing costs), the adjustment should be up to about 250k (assuming housing ~25% of income), not 400k.
- scarmig 6y ago> Living in Spokane doesn’t make your kids college cost less either. It would depend on how much of a pay cut you experience moving to Spokane, but that can certainly make colleges with extensive need-based aid cheaper.
- BrandiATMuhkuh 6y agoGitLab seem to be very open about that. They have a salary calculator that includes the location. https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation/compensation-calculator/calculator/ https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation...
- rogy 6y agothis is very interesting.. backend engineers get paid more than front end at the same level. some of the location multiplayers makes the roles completely insane, scotland for example.
- flocial 6y ago> backend engineers get paid more than front end I'm not surprised having setup a hosted GL instance. It's actually quite amazing how it mostly just works but when things go wrong between upgrades and migrations you quickly realize how complicated everything is under the hood. https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/development/architecture.html#component-diagram https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/development/architecture.html#com...
- thrden 6y agodigging into this, it doesn't seem to adjust for CoL but competitiveness of the market. Seattle and NYC have the same salary bracket, but NYC is by far more expensive. Nerd Wallet claims the city is between 37% to -6% more expensive depending on where you live (Manhattan vs Queens)
- TeMPOraL 6y agoWonder how that pays off for them in terms of hiring. Last time I was looking for a job, I put them near the bottom of my list because of the location-based scaling.
- sytse 6y agoWhen we were still accepting applications we got 15,000 per month. I'm sure that this was so high because of all remote and that if we paid everyone SF rate that would have been even higher.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- vegetablepotpie 6y agoIf the scaling is proportional to cost of living I don’t think much would change. Why would an employee move away from a large city with amenities, culture, and the career advancement opportunities that come from being in an office for a drop in salary? The only advantage I can see to moving is if you’re starting a family and you don’t want to live in the city. Facebook is basically telling its employees that they want them to come into the office.
- Udik 6y agoExactly. A more serious move would be "I'll cut everyone's pay by 20%, now go to live where you want instead of spending insane amounts in rent here".
- falcolas 6y agoGiven that the difference between cost of living between the most and least expensive places in the US is in the $40,000 range, and salary drops are occasionally upwards of double that, no, the scaling is not proportional. For example, I live in Montana. Most COL adjustments say that I'd need about $40,000 more a year to maintain my current standard of living, yet equivalent positions get about $100k to $150k more a year. If one of those poor folks in SF making $250k a year now wants to move to Montana, they can easily expect to be making $150k or less after they move.
- bob33212 6y agoCompanies: We are paying you as little as we can get away with. Sorry that is just how capitalism works. Employees: Sounds good. We will work as little as possible. Companies: Wait a minute here. We are a family and a team. You need to support the team and the mission, even if that means working extra hours without extra pay.
- 25mph 6y agoReminded me of one conversation long time ago: - We're offering you whopping 3.5%. How cool is that? - Do I hear it right that you want my contribution to your company be 3.5%? - Blank stare.
- seattle_spring 6y ago3.5% of what?
- missedthecue 6y agoDon't employees try to charge as much as possible? You're acting like it's a moral and ethical failure that Facebook isn't a charity
- booleandilemma 6y agoDoes this apply to both managers and engineers?
- ChuckMcM 6y agoI understand this, although I disagree with the notion that a job is worth "more" in a high rent area than it is in a low rent area. But that is a different thread. That said, when my kids were in school there was a phenomena that "Cupertino Schools are the best public schools" so parents wanted their kids to go to those schools. Which you could do if you lived in Cupertino, but Cupertino has higher costs than say living in South San Jose. So creative parents would make their "home" one of the apartments run by a "friendly" landlord who would "rent" them an apartment for $100/month, and give them a utility bill with their name on it so that the student could claim Cupertino residency and go to Cupertino schools. Other scams involved people offering to pay the utilities for someone who lived in Cupertino so that they could get that precious document which saved them $8,000 a year or more on private school tuition. Depending on the difference in salary, I would not be surprised to see some of that action going on with regards to people's "Facebook home"
- cowmoo728 6y agoAs someone who grew up near Cupertino, these "scams" have been going on at least since I was in middle school decades ago. One of my classmates rented a small trailer at the top of the hills that was just technically in the school district. It didn't even have running water.
- harryh 6y agoWorth pointing out that if you lie to your employer and get caught probably the worst that can happen is you get fired. But if you like to the government and get caught you can go to jail.
- foldr 6y agoAlthough I think it's unlikely that you'd be prosecuted rather than just fired, it is most likely a criminal offence to obtain a higher salary by submitting false documents.
- harryh 6y agoYa, upon reflection, you're right. Agree it will be unlikely in most circumstances though especially since not only would the company have to press charges, the local DA would also have to decide to pursue the case. I wouldn't risk it if I worked for Oracle though!
- paganel 6y ago> Facebook also uses its own apps' to track employee locations, according to CNBC here one time using the data to find interns who failed to show up for work. Is this legal?
- Slartie 6y ago> Facebook also uses its own apps' to track employee locations Is this irony?
- whateveracct 6y agoI wonder what the granularity is? Can I move to a WA area with middling CoL and benefit from that Seattle-derived salary bump? If they take issue you could make the claim that you would normally commute to Seattle so you deserve the Seattle remote rate.
- trfhuhg 6y agoYou can even rent a trailer in the Seattle area and hire lawyers to explain you how to game these rules in the most legal way. When 500k/year are at stake, employees will be very creative (and, afaik, they are hired precisely for their creativity and outstanding intelligence).
- Simulacra 6y ago"...because at the end of the day, do not pay the employee any more than absolutely necessary." - Facebook Executive, probably.
- lootsauce 6y agoThis is a very subjective thought experiment and I'm sure you could make all kinds of arguments against it but here goes... Imagine person A lives in an area with a high cost of living and gets full salary. Person A is able to purchase a house at a high valuation relative to the national average. Person B in a rural area is able to buy perhaps as nice a house on a smaller salary in a below average market. Now look at the options available to these two people when they want to move. Person A sells at market rate or perhaps a little below and can move to a lower cost of living with a relatively large pile of cash. Person B has no such option. The real estate market arbitrage is available to person A and not to person B. The salary of person A looks like it produces options and upward mobility. The salary for person B seems to have more limitations.
- harryh 6y agoThis is absolutely 100% true. And people considering the pros/cons of high COL+high salaries vs low COL+a lower salary should very much consider this when making their choices. And it's not just about the cost of housing. That $1000 phone you cary: it'll be a higher % if your salary if you go for the latter choice instead of the former. Same thing for many many other purchases you will want to make. I find that people don't think about this enough. To their detriment.
- opportune 6y agoYep. With these "cost of living adjustments" it's almost always a better move long term to live in the higher COL area, especially if you are living inexpensively and saving the vast majority of your money. I save more per year than I would gross working as an engineer near my hometown... Although I will say, person B in your scenario has potentially more upside on their housing equity, and they do potentially get a higher standard of living short term. Of course, there are aspects of standard of living such as public transportation, good public schools, people in your area you'd like to date/be friends with that person B may not be able to buy.
- almost_usual 6y agoI foresee the bar being raised for those wanting to enter a high COL city in the future. I’m already noticing an emphasis on companies wanting to hire more outside of the Bay.
- willart4food 6y agoThis is an issued that existed before COVID-19, more so now. Here's the thing: what prevents someone from moving after taking a job that allows for "remote work"? And - more importantly - what would be the repercussions should someone be found out? My guess is that the risk is worth the money.
- noizejoy 6y agoI find it quite counter-intuitive that there would be different salary levels for remote employees depending on the location they live in, since for remote employees the location is now presumably their choice, and not the employer's - analogous to the personal choice of how expensive the employee's choice of dwelling is. As others have mentioned, anything else runs the danger of creating potentially perverse incentives to move (fake or real) to a more expensive location, thus adding cost to the employer. And when salary costs for some go up, the argument could be made it lowers the pot of total salary money available for the remaining employees, since many large employers are managed to hit overall percentage targets for various cost items (like R&D which for web companies typically has a considerable salary component). The whole thing sure sounds like a classic large company policy with unintended consequences. -- Running large companies is hard.
- herval 6y agoCompanies like Buffer do this too: https://buffer.com/salary/content-marketer-3/average/ https://buffer.com/salary/content-marketer-3/average/
- thrill 6y agoCost of living adjustments should only be allowed to be applied if the location is directed by the company.
- gojomo 6y agoCalifornia might consider making this sort of practice illegal, in the same way they've prohibited requiring a salary history, or enforcing certain non-compete agreements. Why? It's salary discrimination based on a tangential factor that arguably has no effect on the quality-of-work delivered. To the extent an employer has the power to demand such a disclosure, it's suggestive of market-concentration & a lack of competition, that prevents an employee's skills, and skills alone, from determining their compensation. (And, a possible added bonus for California would be that requiring big employers to pay California salaries, even to non-California employees, might deter those employers from seeking such California-tax-base-eroding arrangements.)
- herval 6y agoGiven Fb has offices in many states, couldn’t they simply “transfer” you to the state closer to your home, instead of keeping your base in California?
- almost_usual 6y agoThen they risk talent leaving for a competitor.
- adammunich 6y ago100%
- BurningFrog 6y agoCalifornia has no say over what FB pays its employees in Ohio.
- krzyk 6y agoI assume California also has some low COL places. From a quick look, SF vs Modoc is quite a big difference.
- 6y ago
- motohagiography 6y agoPaying a salary based on someone's location is utter horseshit, unless they are an unskilled replaceable commodity. So at facebook, which is it? It's as though people think that they are paid out of some kind of sense of paternalistic fairness. It's leverage, and if a recruiter can tell you "well the cost of living in your area is %30 lower, therefore your work is %30 less valuable" and you believe them, then sure, you are worth %30 less. If an HR person says, "our policy is we pay less in the area you live," you can respond with, "that's really interesting, my policy is GFY, because I work where I deliver value." Employers do not pay for your time, they pay you for theirs, to shorten the period between their investment and the maximum yield it can return to them. Facebook is no longer mainly solving growth problems, it is solving sustainability and optimization problems, and if you want do do that, you might as well go work at a bank. They haven't dashed the hope of paycheck arbitrage, they have just made a huge public commitment to inferior talent, and they deserve what they get.
- MauranKilom 6y ago> unskilled replaceable commodity That's a weird way to look at "we pay you X because you'd work for someone else otherwise". There's a middle ground between that and "we pay you X because you create Y value for us". Or in other words, if they have more people to choose from for a position (due to location being less of a limiting factor), they will be able to find someone accepting a lower wage. This is deeply unsurprising to me and has nothing to do with how skilled the labor is.
- motohagiography 6y agoTo frame it as companies paying people mainly as a way to impose opportunity cost on their competitors doesn't reflect the comment, normal economics, or growth. While remote work will flatten the market, it will flatten both sides of the market (employers v. staff). When you invest in a business, you pay people to manage it and deliver a yield. If you invest in a business to prevent another business from succeeding, that doesn't make any sense unless you are a government or state captured industry. If your skills and potential value is undifferentiated, sure, someone could undercut you, but if you have something of value to offer, price is much less of a deciding factor.
- ikeboy 6y agoOne of my pet peeves is misuse of the term arbitrage. It in no way applies here.
- yters 6y agoWith so many jobs switching to remote work, what is to stop employees from simultaneously working multiple jobs at once? Not that they probably don't already, but it becomes even easier once many high paying jobs are remote. Plus, they can outsource a lot of it, so employees become mini software dev houses in their own right. Then one guy snaps up all the top positions because he is a 1000x developer due to his keen outsourcing sense. Etc.
- 25mph 6y agoSome non-compete agreements with binding-arbitrage by a employer-chosen arbiter. Employers will try to limit options for labor. Whether it's enforceable is another story.
- egypturnash 6y agoI bet this is a thing a union would help with!
- aremoteworker 6y agoConfused why remote location matters for pay (from a tax/legal standpoint, I understand it from a cost of living standpoint). I work for a company that has remote workers all in different states across the US and they (developers) are all on one shared pay scale without different pays per location and they just pay state taxes in whatever state they choose to live in.
- toadi 6y agoI have have worked as freelance contractor for most of my career. In my country 80% of decent IT people do this. We can demand higher income because our contracts only last 3 months so it's easy to lay us off when we are not needed (we have strong labor laws and employees are costly even on top of their salary). Due to this we can demand more salary too. My price goes up for short term prospect contracts, long distance of travel, I'm not particular interested in the project, ... In good times that works great but you better save some of that money for bad times. I have build a good reputations so employers were ok with me working remote. So I could discount a bit as I didn't have to do long distance travel and because it was better for me. I also took the time to move to a lower cost of living country. Was nice, but the timezone was not that interesting. Currently I don't work for my home country anymore. I work locally, apparently they pay well for my expertise here. Still I could edge out a few percentages more in my home country. But with the lower cost of living I still have more money in the bank at the end of the month. If you can't do som form of paycheck arbitrage why would you move? Doesn't mean you need to have same salaries like you had before, you can take a small haircut. But just making the same as people locally? In my case that would be the salary I had when I just came out of school 23 years ago.
- ralmidani 6y agoWhile tying paychecks to cost of living may appear to be equitable at a surface level, in reality you end up rewarding some workers who insist on living in an expensive area and, in a sense, force those who are willing to live in less expensive areas to subsidize their colleagues’ expensive lifestyles.
- Spivak 6y agoTrue but there’s a balancing dynamic in play. Living in a high CoL area is an advantage to you because you win when paying fixed expenses and world rates. Living in a low CoL area gives you an advantage because you will cost the company less and are more likely to get the job. Big brain play is to find a company that has a policy like this and move up in the world.
- Consultant32452 6y agoI've worked remotely for 10+ years and I have one piece of advice. Ignore these policies. Live wherever you want and demand whatever salary you think you're producing at. If FB wants to leave high productivity labor on the table, let them. If any company has any kind of policy that stops them from hiring you, that's their problem. We've been in a seller's market for software development labor for nearly 20 years. Stop pretending like these arbitrary rules are your problem, it's theirs. They can't limit you. They can only limit themselves.
- Spivak 6y agoYep! FB can’t pull this shit once you have other offers.
- bevacqua 6y agoSo much this. There's companies out there that value output at what you're worth, regardless of where you live at. I'm almost certain that Facebook is one of those companies — when it comes to high output employees. Negotiate.
- bevacqua 6y agoThink about it from the angle of consulting rates as a remote developer. Would you charge a different rate to companies that operate in the same markets based on where you are at? Why would you accept a different rate as a FTE, then? You charge what you're worth, not where
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- RHSeeger 6y agoThe counter to that is that there's people that live in cheaper areas that are willing to accept less _because_ their cost of living is lower. If a company can hire them instead of someone )with the same productivity) basing their expected salary on what people make in SV, then why wouldn't they? Following that logic, people living SV should start making less while people living in inexpensive areas should start making more; it should even out to some extent.
- dang 6y agoRemote work threads have been the biggest cliché of HN since the pandemic (and were one of the bigger ones already), and arguing about location-based salaries has been the biggest cliché of remote-work threads lately. So normally this follow-up post would get a moderation downweight (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20follow-up&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). But I'm lessening the downweight because it seems to me this bit may count as SNI (Significant New Information): Employees who attempt to wiggle around those compensation adjustments will be subject to “severe ramifications,” [Zuckerberg] said, as the company needs to account for employee locations to avoid violating tax laws. Zuckerberg said Facebook will monitor adherence by checking where employees access its VPN. Facebook also uses its own apps' to track employee locations, according to CNBC [...] (See https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20%22significant%20new%20information%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... about SNI.)
- vidanay 6y agoSo there are going to be 20,000 engineers with their home in Malibu through a dead drop address and living almost anywhere else.
- crorella 6y agoWhat bout the tracking of phones and laptops? You'd have to have your laptop with a remote desktop software or something like that.. or to spoof the GPS and make sure you connect to an anon wifi that is not sharing its position.
- 25mph 6y agoSomeone who's paid 400k can afford to buy a bunch of phones and laptops, install whatever survelliance software on them and leave them at a rented trailer.
- iandanforth 6y agoThis is wage discrimination. The problem is that it is, so far, legal discrimination. If an employee gets married, is that a legal reason to cut their salary? No. If an employee has a child, is that a legal reason to cut their salary? No. If an employee comes out as gay, or updates their gender identity, is that a legal reason to cut their salary? No. The first two could logically be tied to decreases in productivity, but even if it did decrease a workers productivity you can't cut their salary. It's illegal. So what's the real problem here? Taxes. Let's say that we correctly argue that the product of ones output should be compensated at the agreed upon rate and that if efficiencies of production are found by the producer they are under no obligation to 1. Disclose that fact or 2. Pass on savings to their customer. Despite the fact that this is logically and economically sound the reality is that legislators will balk at legislation which would make their state less economically attractive. Convincing them is not an impossible task, but it's a hard one. The principle of "equal pay for equal work" is not naturally embraced by industry. Almost any distinguishing characteristic that could be used as an excuse to reduce wages has been used to do so. Laws championed by labor movements have been the only way to curb the natural tendencies of companies. So is it normal and natural for a capitalist CEO to take this position? Yes. The moral and logical ramifications have little power. It's only when those ramifications are instantiated by law advocated for by impacted populations that we should expect change.
- Barrin92 6y agoIf you think this is illegitimate wage discrimination I have a question for you, if you order coffee in bumfuck idaho, do you pay the barrista, who does the same work as one in Palo Alto, the same price for their coffee?
- iandanforth 6y agoThis is not a valid analogy. There are two decisions 1. Do I pay the price asked? If I'm in Idaho and I want coffee and they are asking for Bay Area Starbucks prices the answer is "Yes." But that's because I'm used to it, and its not the point. The question is: 2. If the store buys a machine that decreases their costs by 20% am I entitled to demand a lower price? No.
- Donald 6y agoUsing their own app to track their employees' location sounds very dystopian, and potentially complicates the lives of employees without a clear location but who have established a residence for tax purposes.
- Traster 6y ago>Employees who attempt to wiggle around those compensation adjustments will be subject to “severe ramifications,” he said, as the company needs to account for employee locations to avoid violating tax laws. >Zuckerberg said Facebook will monitor adherence by checking where employees access its VPN. Do you think facebook employees respond well to these sorts of threats? Do you think I'll get a call from HR when I go visit my parents and log in from their house for a couple of days? I've got an idea, we can fit each of the facebook engineers with an ankle tracker like those guys on parole. Can't be too careful.
- goldenkey 6y ago"You've been detected using NordVPN. You've been fired. Have a nice day!" - Push Notification from Facebook @ Home
- chank 6y agoA few days won't matter. However some states like New York have laws that if you're physically in state and working (remotely or otherwise) for more than 14 days in a year; you owe taxes on that income regardless of 'where' it's earned. And pretty much all companies that have people who travel around keep track of it so the taxes are properly reported and paid.
- robocat 6y ago> [in NY] for more than 14 days in a year; you owe taxes on that income regardless of 'where' it's earned Does that include overseas visitors? I think that legally we are not supposed to be working (for a company in our home country) while “visiting”, but having tax implications is another level of risk I was unaware of... Plus, if I answer a work call from my country for 5 minutes, does that count as using up one of the 14 days?
- chank 6y agoI'm not into the exact details of it. Needless to say I got dinged on it from my own company due to traveling (for the company) into the state and had a chat with HR about it and it was explained out to me what was going on. My guess is that for certain companies following the letter of the law is more important than others and report as they should. The state of NY may or may not bother coming after any company or individual they can prove had people in the area working in some capacity. In most cases I'm guessing it's not worth the bother but for large companies (like Facebook) it may be. So they want to know where their people are working from because it has tax implications that they may be on the hook for.
- rkochman 6y agoI’m waiting for this to be framed as a racial equity issue. Are they really going to pay people in Detroit and Atlanta less than people in San Francisco and Seattle for the same job in the same “virtual” location?
- jdhn 6y agoProbably. You can get a 2br apartment in Detroit and Ann Arbor for half the cost of a 1br in San Francisco.
- habosa 6y agoIf they make more working for Facebook in Detroit than for a a Detroit-local tech company, and they will, it's hard to say who's harmed here. Of course there's gray area here but I think it will be fine. They won't be the first company with localized salaries.
- Markoff 6y agoPretty insane, as if people were not doing same job regardless of where they choose to live. I understand you must offer competitive salary based on location when hiring for on site job, since workers and company is fighting against local competition, but at WFH you are literally fighting with everyone everywhere, so the salary should be fixed for everyone instead punishing more frugal people who choose to live in cheaper location.
- rkochman 6y agoZuck can do whatever he thinks is “fair” but ultimately he has to deal with the realities of the labor market, which will change if remote works really catches on.
- 25mph 6y agoI'm sure Zuck doesn't know the concept of fairness and would laugh if someone would explain it to him. Words that Zuck understands are "efficient", "justifiable", "profitable".
- rayiner 6y agoThe lawsuits around this are going to be amazing. African American developer has kids and moves to Georgia to be near family; receives steep pay cut compared to white developers who move to Connecticut to do the same. And how does Facebook decide what the cost of living in your area is, anyway? The more data-driven Facebook makes that calculation, the more delicious the law suit gets. For example, DC is a fairly high cost of living Metro area, but there are some nice suburbs in PG County 30-45 minutes east of the city that are quite affordable. They’re also predominantly African American. Does Facebook set your salary based on living in the DC metro area, or do they drill down further and cut your pay for living in PG County? I can’t wait to see what happens.
- enitihas 6y agoAnd how exactly is that different than the current low salaries in Georgia compared to Connecticut?
- wtfno009887466 6y agoSince we pretend there's no class divide in America we've got to use the tools we have to combat economic injustice.
- lykr0n 6y ago> The lawsuits around this are going to be amazing. No. They won't. This isn't anything new. GitLab as a company does this. My company does this. US Federal Government does this. It's not controversial. HN is the one making it controversial. YOU are making it controversial by bringing race into it. If you have clear salary bands ("SWE III makes base 100k to 150k") and clear location bands ("NYC is 35%, Westchester County is 29%, Monroe County is 8%) then it's completely fair. > And how does Facebook decide what the cost of living in your area is, anyway? You could use the same scales the US Federal Government releases. You could base it on the average cost of living. Lots of data-points. Every state and local government collects this data for various reasons. Hell, Walmart and other large Grocery Stores most likely do this as well to localize prices properly.
- adammunich 6y agoIf your method of motivating people is "severe ramifications" maybe it's time to chill for a while and go fishing.
- shagie 6y agoConsider the "severe ramifications" that Facebook would be facing if they are reporting income for a worker in California when the worker has decided to move to Montana.
- Lammy 6y agoHopefully they face some very severe ramifications for reporting their income in Ireland, yes :) https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-tax-idUSKBN20C2CQ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-tax-idUSKBN20C2C...
- burnte 6y agoImagine paying an employee in a manner that you don't have to worry about them lying about where they are. Rather than judging how much to pay them based on where they live, you just pay them and not worry if you can screw them over or not.
- righteous 6y agoCool. Lets change the laws to make that legal.
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y agoThis comment was dead. I vouched for it which brought it back to life as I believe it makes a strong point the parent comment disregards.
- randallsquared 6y ago...to make it legal to pay someone on the value they bring, rather than where they live? Pretty sure there no obvious laws against that. ETA: as long as the value is high enough, at least. Probably you meant "to not have to know where they live", but that wasn't what the GP's post was saying.
- mtviewdave 6y agoHere's a thought experiment. Let's say an employer is based out of downtown San Jose, and employs people on-site. Would it be reasonable for them to adjust salaries depending on what city an employee lived in? The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $3,291 in Mountain View, but $2,390 in Morgan Hill. If an employee moved from Mountain View to Morgan Hill, would the employer be justified in reducing the salary of the employee to adjust for the fact that the (on-site!) employee now lives in a lower cost-of-living area? (Let's assume that other CoL factors are not more expensive in Morgan Hill than Mountain View, which I feel is a safe assumption). Would it be justified if the company was fully remote? What about if the employee moved to Sunnyvale? The average rent is $3,016; a smaller difference, but still cheaper than Mountain View.
- gnicholas 6y agoCompanies already effectively do this, but frame it as a perk for those who live close. IIRC Facebook and Palantir paid 10k to people who lived within 1 mile of the office.
- vkou 6y agoOr better yet, what if they moved to Stockton? A 1-bedroom's $1200/month there, and it's still technically within commuting distance from the bay area.
- yongjik 6y agoI'm not sure that the example is similar to the current topic: rent is cheaper than Morgan Hill largely because it takes an hour to drive to lots of workplaces. People are choosing between paying higher rent in Mountain View and paying with their commute time in Morgan Hill. It's arguably a different scenario from someone attending VC from their $400K, 5-bedroom mansion in Raleigh, NC.
- IggleSniggle 6y agoBut that's also sort of the point, isn't it? When you are dealing with a remote worker, the commute time doesn't matter. You don't need to consider paying geographical based salaries, because the location isn't relevant. There is no "paying with commute time." You just need to pay the amount that enables you to get the workers you need. The "fair" thing to do is to pay people without regard to location and let them decide for themselves whether it is worth it to live in a HCOL area or not.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- russellbeattie 6y agoIt says quite a lot about Facebook's culture and employees that they felt the need to be so explicit and public about this issue. Normally, this would be talked about on an individual basis, or an internal HR memo once it was determined there was an actual issue. At Facebook, they apparently are so worried about their employees lack of ethics as a whole, they felt the need to just immediately threaten the entire company. From what we all know of Zuckerberg and Facebook, this shouldn't be surprising, but it's amazing to see it confirmed.
- aphextron 6y agoWho on earth actually wants to work for a company like this?
- almost_usual 6y agoSomeone who wants to make 400k-500k and will do whatever (legally) to achieve that.
- EGreg 6y agoWait. Facebook pays 400-500k a year? I saw $155K average in NYC Show me the links to the job openings lol I am curious
- sciurus 6y agoIt depends on your level and is total comp, not just base salary. https://www.levels.fyi/company/Facebook/salaries/ https://www.levels.fyi/company/Facebook/salaries/
- pnako 6y agoHere we go again with this thread (dang was talking about HN cliches above)... My friend is an intern at Facegoogle and is making 800K a year, excluding bonus. But my friend working a prop trading shop, with two years experience, is making 2M in a good year.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- bigmanwalter 6y agoThat's their total comp including RSU if you rise the ranks.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- vkou 6y ago1. That's base pay. Stock is another ~20-40%. Bonus is another ~20%. 2. That's pay for an engineer. Juniors get ~30% less, seniors get ~30% more. 3. Senior is attainable by most people, and will get you ~350k all-in. 4. The next level is not attainable by most people, but will be getting you ~450k all-in.
- cracker_jacks 6y agoIs there any transparency on how "a moderation downweight" works? It sounds like a useful feature, but what does it exactly do, and is there a public log for these types of things.
- alexpetralia 6y agoHere is a prior discussion of this issue by dang: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23286685 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23286685
- mistermann 6y agoA rather interesting reply. I'm surprised dang seems to believe communities don't self-enforce overton-window-esque acceptable norms of speech and behavior.
- cbdumas 6y agoI'm not an expert by any means, but I believe that at this point there is some evidence that online communities actually do exactly the opposite. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0192512117692136 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/01925121176921... https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/11/study-finds-reddits-controversial-ban-of-its-most-toxic-subreddits-actually-worked/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/11/study-finds-reddits-contro...
- mistermann 6y agoSometimes. As is often the case, there is evidence for both (banning/limiting, Chilling Effect, power pressure & scolding, etc), depending on the community. In your second link, the topics were literally banned from the platform, rendering the question moot in that case.
- tomhoward 6y ago> I'm surprised dang seems to believe He's been moderating this site for nearly 8 years, and frequenting it almost daily since it first launched in 2007. We can reasonably expect he's learned a thing or two in that time.
- aianus 6y agoStill win-win depending on how much they scale. $50k/year in Thailand or Vietnam is way more luxurious than $200k in SF.
- refurb 6y agoAgree with foreign destinations, but I assume any adjustment within the US will be a net negative for the employee since its mostly housing that impact COL. A 1 bed in SF is $3,000 and say $1,500 in NC. That’s $18,000 post-tax or $24,000 per-tax. If FB lowers your salary from $200k to $175k (not a big jump), you’re down a net $1,000 per-tax.
- alexpetralia 6y agoYes, but in 5 years, who has the option in living in SF?
- jimkleiber 6y agoI wish instead of trying to force us to live in one place because of geographic tax laws, we would talk about reforming geographic tax (and other) laws.
- kristofferR 6y agoHow would that possibly work without a world government?
- bobthepanda 6y agoEven in the case of just the US, how would that even work without a unitary, as opposed to federal government?
- jimkleiber 6y agoFair point. Perhaps some things get more standardized across regions, like income tax, and other things stay geographically defined. A balance between standardization and localization. But overall, I have no idea. Just seems as if government hasn't known how to handle very well things that happen across geographic boundaries. Maybe that's because government is geographically bound. If I sell a digital file online, if someone buys it in Spain, Germany, France, and Italy, I have to collect and submit VAT at four different rates for just four customers. I'm not sure what the answers are, just really hoping we start discussing this as a society, because things may become even more geographically independent.
- bobthepanda 6y ago(Some) government services and their beneficiaries are geographically bound, so it makes sense that the fundraising for such services is also geographically bound. On the face of it, this makes sense. Some services will always be locally bound, because things like police or fire wouldn't make much sense at a federal level; why should someone in Billings have input on policing in New York City, or vice versa? Should someone in Cork have say on how Bucharest is handling garbage pickup? Whether or not the current legal subregion boundaries (for the US, the states) make much sense is another story, but the Founders were of the opinion that the imperfect state borders would be preferable to having the federal government exercise complete control lest it fall into the hands of a tyrant.
- ken 6y ago> The company, one of Silicon Valley’s biggest employers, is giving U.S. staffers who are approved to work remotely until Jan. 1, 2021 to update the company on where they plan to base themselves, at which point their salaries will be adjusted to reflect the local cost of living. So it’s about maintaining control over employees, not managing company expenses. You may be this successful, no more.
- maximente 6y agoit is absolutely precious to see software engineers wake up to the reality that they are, at the end of the day, plain ol' labor and are thus treated like labor when capital gets itself moving in a particular direction. all of the attempts to rationalize this as fair or unfair are not useful - i'm guessing most SWEs will accept big salary cuts to work from wherever they want in the country. hell, a large portion of the SWE crowd is willing to distribute their labor /for free/ in the form of FLOSS, so i have no doubt that they will not hold the line in any sense if big tech starts implementing this in earnest. add to that fears of another tech recession (e.g. VC money drying up) and mean big tech SWE salary may drop a fair chunk. anyway, on the plus side, there may be a large cadre of talent available on the cheap - seniors willing to work remotely on a more mission-oriented project from their bungalow in Ohio. so it's probably a great time to start a software company, or might be shortly.
- PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago> hell, a large portion of the SWE crowd is willing to distribute their labor /for free/ in the form of FLOSS that's an incredibly un-nuanced view of the economics of FLOSS. even at just a first approximation, if you consider the existence of Linux as a "fully fledged" platform to be of economic value to you, then participating in the advancement of that goal represents participating in an exchange economy, not "distributing labor for free". and there are other ways in which FLOSS developers receive benefits from their work on FLOSS, too numerous to mention here.
- pm90 6y agoWell SWEs are plain old labor and they’re compensated as such because big tech (and startups) recognize the value provided by productive SWEs. They wouldn’t be paying those astronomical wages unless the returns were about as high. I don’t think anyone is rationalizing that it’s not labor; it’s well compensated labor. The current high compensation was driven by the market: senior engineers get poached by startups with similar base pay but higher equity, so FAANGs raced to match that. Keep in mind that some of the FAANGs themselves were startups not that long ago and used similar tactics to poach labor from other firms. To address what you’re really getting at though: tech comp could absolutely take a hit if there is depression that hollows out demand for technology based products. It could happen if the unemployment persists for too long or if the Government stops providing Unemployment benefits. Remains to be seen.
- lonelappde 6y agoThat's SNI for the article, but not Significant New Discussion in the comments. I always wondered though, why not let these flamebait discussion topics stay up as a Honeypot to keep the other threads cleaner?
- dang 6y agoI don't think that's an accurate model of how flamewars work. The fire analogy is better: if you let them burn they spread. Worse, they evoke worse from others, and if allowed to persist, they lower the norms of the community. I'd throw the broken windows theory into this metaphor soup also. (I've detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23295278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23295278 to minimize the off-topicness at the top of the page.) Btw you're largely right about the discussion not being significantly different, and (more importantly) about that being the key thing to look for. This is not widely understood! However, my posting that and pinning it to the top of the thread did lead to a wave of comments about the SNI, which was the intent. Maybe the discussion will shift a bit in that direction. I like that acronym, partly because it really is a specialized concept that deserves a pseudotechnical name, but mostly because it's fun to say "snee". SNI SNI SNI.
- tptacek 6y agoIt's also "Server Name Indication", the piece of TLS that allows a single IP to serve multiple hosts by having the client signal the name they're requesting, and also "Secure Networks, Incorporated", my first dev job. You could just call it "snee!" (I advise the exclamation point as well), whimsically, and let people just deal with the weird etymology. It's a big site! You stand a decent chance at introducing a new word to the lexicon!
- pvg 6y agoThere's something to be said for casual, no-explanation, no exclamation point use of 'snee'. It suggests to readers they just happen to be unfamiliar with this common internet term like the sort of people people who don't know 'scrome' is 'chat backscroll you don't intend to read'.
- Joof 6y agoI live in a van. Does that mean I'm working around compensation adjustments?
- scarface74 6y agoYou have to pay taxes in whatever state your van is located. If you work in multiple states, you have to pay taxes in multiple states. Athletes have to pay taxes in every state they play. If they played in one game per state in 25 states. They have to file 25 different state tax returns.
- burnte 6y agoKnowing FB, probably. You only get to keep your high salary if you're spending most of it.
- souterrain 6y agoWhat state(s)|countr(y|ies) do you report as your location for tax purposes? Working for a New York State-based employer is interesting in this regard. NY demands income tax when telework is not for the benefit of the employer. Depending on where you are working and what the tax laws are, you may be paying two states income tax. https://www.tax.ny.gov/pdf/memos/income/m06_5i.pdf https://www.tax.ny.gov/pdf/memos/income/m06_5i.pdf (PDF)
- CountSessine 6y agoReally, if you’re a contractor and if the local and state governments have f*cked up the housing market as badly as they have in much of California, badly enough that you have to live in a van, I don’t believe that they are morally entitled to capture even a dime of the value of your labour in income taxes. Screw ‘em.
- a3n 6y ago> I live in a van. >> What state(s)|countr(y|ies) do you report as your location for tax purposes? I live in my employer's semi truck. I report my "home terminal" as my tax paying state, using my son's apartment in that state as a mailing address. I pay taxes in that state. Other truckers maintain an actual physical residence of their own. But there are many like me. It's sort of like living in an RV, wrt taxes.
- mrfusion 6y agoWhat if I work in San Jose but life in a van? Why do I get a high salary but someone in a house in Ohio gets a lower salary?
- B-Con 6y ago> The biggest loser, he predicted, would be California. California had been downtown hostile to the tech industry and grown complacent work the status quo because the tech workers had to be there. If tech workers don't have to be there, they will start trickling out. CA worked hard to make the bed they're about to lie in.
- jdhn 6y agoEh, I've heard people predicting the end of tech in California for YEARS. Hasn't panned out, and I don't see it changing anytime soon. Kind of reminds me of the people who say that China's economy is a house of cards and is going to implode any day now. They've been saying it for decades and nothing has happened.
- astura 6y agoWhen I was in college almost 20 years ago there was a lot of discussion about if commerical software would be produced anywhere in the US in the next decade. It was a legitimate concern of mine.
- B-Con 6y agoCA won't implode soon. But momentum is hard to change and right now the industry is looking for a ways to not be in CA. It hasn't panned out yet, but once they are unlocked and can leave the region there will be a river of people leaving. Let that run for a decade and then there will be trouble. If (and that's a big if) the current trend allows CA workers to work remotely from non-CA, I think SV will be a very different place in 15 years. A place not on the trajectory of the last 15.
- gruez 6y ago>Zuckerberg said Facebook will monitor adherence by checking where employees access its VPN. Facebook also uses its own apps' to track employee locations, according to CNBC So all I need to do paycheck arbitrage is to use a VPN with private residential IP (yes, that's a thing), and a rooted/jailbroken phone that does location spoofing?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- proverbialbunny 6y agoAlmost. Apps check if a phone is jailbroken, so that needs to be dealt with too.
- gruez 6y agoThat's only an issue if the use of a non-jailbroken/rooted phone is a requirement for doing the job. "I like my phone rooted/jailbroken" is a plausible excuse already.
- loeg 6y agoThey provide a biz phone for on-call and jail-breaking it is probably out of scope of what is permitted.
- Nextgrid 6y agoIf you try hard enough, there are mobile carriers that will hand over the SIM's data session to a tunnel endpoint of your choice (via L2TP or IPsec). There is always a way.
- saghm 6y agoIs it possible to nest VPNs, i.e. connect to a VPN in the location of the preferred fake home, then connect to Facebook's VPN through that? I genuinely know enough about VPNs to know if this is possible or not.
- neokantian 6y ago> giving U.S. staffers who are approved to work remotely until Jan. 1, 2021 to update the company on where they plan to base themselves What exactly does it mean to "base yourself somewhere"? It obviously does not mean that you have to "be there" 24/7 ... > Zuckerberg said Facebook will monitor adherence by checking where employees access its VPN. So, Facebook will check the location of the last device that forwards the employee's signal to their own VPN server? For an internet company, Facebook do not seem to understand the internet particularly well!
- d_burfoot 6y ago> company needs to account for employee locations to avoid violating tax laws Serious question: can some tax-savvy individual explain what the relevant tax laws are? How much could a worker's tax residence affect the corporation's tax liability?
- burlesona 6y agoMany (most?) taxes are state and local, as most services are operated at the state and local level. The most obvious example that comes to my mind is unemployment. Each state has a different unemployment program, and every employer must pay in a certain amount for each employee in the state.
- ProjectArcturis 6y agoIf you live most of your days in Missouri, you are a Missouri resident and you need to pay Missouri state income taxes, and maybe local income taxes as well. If you/your company is paying California income tax instead, that's a problem for both of you.
- User23 6y agoThere are no bright lines in residency law in the USA. You can potentially reside in one state for five months and the other for seven but be domiciled in the former. This is an area where you really ought to rely on professional advice.
- ArtDev 6y agoAnd, if you live in a country that does not tax resident foreigners whose entire income is foreign, you pay no income tax at all. The only countries I know that do this cheaply are Costa Rica and Uruguay (the Bahamas have expensive requirements). One technique is to not live anywhere more than six months but be a residency in one of those countries. I haven't done this because I have kids and pets.. but it seems pretty awesome if you make a competitive salary (not Facebook!).
- cortesoft 6y agoA lot of states have payroll taxes, which the employer has to pay for each employee working in that state.
- tjbiddle 6y agoBit of a bummer - This is precisely what I was doing pretty much my whole tech career: First landed a job in California, turned it into a remote gig, and then all jobs thereafter were remote with either NYC or SF pay while I bummed around in very LCOL places like Bali. Already moved on to other pastures, but a bit sad to know that fallback isn't there any longer. Ah well.
- sys_64738 6y agoI'm surprised FB would need to ask workers to provide this information given FB usually knows more about an individual than the individual does.
- Khelavaster 6y agoSo, employees can move to rural, inexpensive parts of northeast California?
- dba7dba 6y agoI'm thinking why not move to Hawaii or a beach town 1hr - 2hr north or south of Santa Monica CA? Quality of life will improve vastly for those who can afford to do so.
- seasoup 6y agoThe warm, sunny states with affordable housing and zero taxes will see an influx of educated, rich workers. States will need to cut taxes to keep up,” Or maybe, just maybe, the zero tax states will need to raise taxes to support all the infrastructure costs that come with a growing population? High tax states aren’t high tax just because...
- habosa 6y agoWhere did Facebook say that "cost of living" will impact salaries? At Google (where I work) salaries vary a lot based on location but cost of living is not part of the equation. It's based on the cost of hiring in the market. I'm personally in the middle of an SF to London transfer. I'm taking a 25% pay cut. That is not because it's cheap to live in London (it's not) but rather because it's very very cheap to hire developers there. I imagine Facebook will do something similar.
- throwlaplace 6y ago>That is not because it's cheap to live in London (it's not) but rather because it's very very cheap to hire developers there. lol those are exactly the same thing
- tricolon 6y agoYou misunderstand. While salaries are relatively low in London, the cost of living (i.e. rent) is relatively high.
- mFixman 6y agoUnrelated to the topic, but you are making a good decision. Cost of living in London is not too different from SF, but FAANG salaries are still ridiculously high here and quality of life is considerably better. You'll have less savings, but you'll enjoy life more.
- causehealth101 6y agoExactly, it's based on the local market's cost of labor. I'm curious about this topic - are developers cheaper to hire because there is an oversupply of them or an undersupply of jobs?
- eanzenberg 6y agoPiggybacking. This should be no surprise. When your job becomes remote, you now compete with people willing to earn half or less because they choose not to live where you do. Basic econ. Don’t be entitled, it’s no surprise most of the country hates tech workers.
- aantix 6y ago>Don’t be entitled Because you want to maximize your earnings based on the value you bring? LOL..
- eanzenberg 6y agoNo, because people are trying to “hack” the system by getting SV wages living in Des Moines IA. This will introduce upward pressure on cost of living everywhere else. No, you don’t deserve a 6000sq ft mansion that a doctor living in the same region cannot afford. Besides not making sense, since as I mentioned, there are people willing to make half as much who live in these areas.
- aantix 6y ago>you don’t deserve a 6000sq ft mansion that a doctor living in the same region cannot afford. Speak for yourself. One life to live. Go for the home run - stand your grand, hold out for the big offer.
- scarface74 6y agoYou don’t get paid based on the value you bring. You get paid based on supply and demand. Once they can hire from anywhere in the US, the supply increases.
- aantix 6y agoThe supply does increase. But the time to properly screen senior engineers remains finite. Who are the people that can properly vet senior-level talent? A few other senior-level engineers that are on the team? So you want them to ask questions that are beyond the superficial, phone screen 50 candidates, all the while they're supposed to continue to do product development, fix bugs, comments on PR? Something will suffer - either the hiring process or product development. For every potential hiree that rejects an offer, an engineer that gets into the late stages of the interview process only to be hired away by a better offer is time wasted by your engineering team. Engineers in the late stages of hiring have the upper hand. Repeat it to your self. "I have the leverage." With an offer on the table, push back and counter offer. They don't want you to walk away. Living in Des Moines and they already have a senior team in SF? Awesome. Ask for the SF salary or walk. They'll counter. And if they don't? You can salvage the deal by approach them in two days with another counter. In two days, they have _not_ lined up another qualified senior engineer. They've already burned so many resources. The company knows this. Now you do too.
- paulryanrogers 6y agoOne way I've heard the company thinking explained is replacement cost. When a valuable employee gets a better offer a company suddenly may be willing to pay more for the same person, regardless of location. Now if they can replace that person without spending more then they will. There is no loyalty.
- btbuildem 6y agoI wonder how that salary adjustment will actually play out. If they drop salaries to location average, they'll still have to compete with other companies (and not just local, many other remote jobs too). You could work for Initech in your locale, or FANG remotely, and the salary would be the same. Would Initech have to raise their pay, or would the FANG jobs suddenly be too demanding for what they pay?
- zrail 6y agoUltimately if you’re working for salary your pay is at the whim of your employer. If you want to make real money as a remote worker then switch to consulting.
- holografix 6y agoI’m struggling to see how this will promote remote work arrangements. Perhaps that’s the exact intention? “If you think you can stop coming into the office to save time and money we’ll cut your pay”?
- ArtDev 6y agoLocation-based salaries is offensive and just plain wrong. Monitoring where employees login from, so the company can cut costs, seems typical of a company like Facebook.. but still makes me mad.
- supportlocal4h 6y agoIt is generally-expected behavior for an automaker to shift production to the cheapest labor market. Well, maybe not the absolute cheapest. Cost of goods transport, e.t.c. also factor in. But it doesn't surprise anyone for manufacturers to open factories in locations that lower their costs. It's an obvious thing to do. So it has always baffled me that tech companies do the exact opposite. They motivate the most skilled people to leave low-cost areas and move to the most expensive. They pile them in higher and higher and keep driving their own labor costs through the roof. And VCs exacerbate the problem by refusing to fund anything in less expensive locations. It's easy to dismiss this as irrational. But is it really? Are there benefits to this that are so huge they outweigh the costs? If you could pay $10,000,000 to move 1000 devs to Kingman, AZ, then cut their avg salary from $250,000 to $150,000, why wouldn't you do that? What is the downside to saving $90,000,000 after moving expenses in the first year alone? The obvious first argument is reduction in the standard of living would cause the talented to refuse. I'm sensitive to this, but also skeptical. People making 150 in Kingman would improve their SOL. I could be wrong, but I think there are more important factors. I think there is too much money at stake for these employers to have not thought it through. When a common behavior looks insanely irrational, it is more likely that you haven't seen all the variables.
- 25mph 6y agoPerhaps the location is only a side effect, while the true reason is the low supply of qualified coders. Why do corp lawyers command $400-600/hour? Why not to just hire a lawyer in India for $40/hour? Why not to hire a cheap accountant in Phillipines? Ah, right, the cheap options cost more in the long run and those who are competent have migrated to the US and now command the same 600/hour.
- 8ytecoder 6y agoCompanies that require skilled labour don’t move to places with cheap labour. They move to places with abundant skilled labour that’s available at a reasonable cost. Or, they spend money training and equipping the available labour. There’s no way around it.
- 6y ago
- j0hnml 6y agoAs someone who is considering asking for the first time to move out of my high CoL area to be fully remote, does anyone have any advice on what to expect and how to navigate said conversation? It’s a bit nerve-wracking to think about and I want to be best prepared.
- buboard 6y agostage of grief: denial
- nugget 6y agoIf a developer is 100% wfh and productive, who cares where they live? FB's stance would seem to alienate the technical talent that they spend a fortune to recruit, train, and keep motivated. Not to mention make anyone who wants to move an easy target for competitors to poach. Edit: Of course the IRS should care, and employers should want to accurately report domicile. His statement came across as the company being more worried about the exploitation of a corporate compensation loophole than adherence with tax law. Maybe they saw so much initial interest in relocating that they felt they had to pour some cold water on it.
- frakkingcylons 6y agoThe IRS cares where you’re working. Facebook (or any employer) has to report it accurately.
- jupp0r 6y agoDo they have to adjust salaries too or is that just saving money on compensation?
- jkaplowitz 6y agoNo government authority requires salaries to vary based on location.
- nojito 6y agoFederal salaries have cost of living adjustments.
- jkaplowitz 6y agoAbsolutely, but that's them acting as an employer rather than as a regulation of other employer's choices.
- unethical_ban 6y ago
- jrs235 6y agoSV companies are evaluating their employee's BATNA. And if more tech companies are going this route, everyone's BATNA is decreasing. They don't want to overpay an "employee's market". It isn't just about the value an employee brings to the company when working in SV or the middle of Nebraska. It's turning into a buyer's market for tech jobs. Many people would be/will be/are pissed when a company eliminates remote positions and suddenly require employees to report to an office.
- Aeolun 6y agoPossibly, but I suspect the pain would be less if they suddenly started making 200% more money.
- PopeDotNinja 6y agoBATNA -- "best alternative to a negotiated agreement"
- Smoosh 6y ago> Facebook also uses its own apps' to track employee locations Not unexpected, but another reason not to work there.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- megaframe 6y ago> ...salaries will be adjusted to reflect the local cost of living. So if the employee where to move to say Hong Kong where cost of living is higher will they also in turn increase wages? I think not. If they keep a local address in some random apartment they never stay at but live elsewhere how would one check on that? If you're willing to pay California taxes but live elsewhere I find it hard to see how they'd plan to enforce this. You could always argue you were temporarily traveling hence the local address you intended to return to and pay taxes at. Friends of mine do this, returning to the US every 6 months or so.
- revicon 6y agoI read somewhere that they were talking about using the Facebook app itself to track remote employees whereabouts. Having trouble finding the reference right now though.
- ngngngng 6y agoEmployees who attempt to wiggle around those compensation adjustments will be subject to “severe ramifications,” [Zuckerberg] said, as the company needs to account for employee locations to avoid violating tax laws. Zuckerberg said Facebook will monitor adherence by checking where employees access its VPN. Facebook also uses its own apps' to track employee locations, according to CNBC [...] (See https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu.... about SNI.)
- BurningFrog 6y agoUntil FB publishes how they'll set wages in different locations, discussion about the policy is pretty much useless. Since the actual policy is unknown. Not that that has ever stopped an online debate before :)
- u801e 6y ago> Employees who attempt to wiggle around those compensation adjustments will be subject to “severe ramifications,” he said, as the company needs to account for employee locations to avoid violating tax laws. I guess it depends on the state, but if you decide to not have any taxes withheld from your paycheck and just make quarterly tax payments, then is particular assertion true?
- KoftaBob 6y agoThere's another half of this phenomenon that seems to get ignored. Yes, allowing remote work greatly increases a company's supply of potential employees. However, if more and more companies offer remote work as an option, that means employees now have a greatly increased supply of companies competing for them as well. The software engineer living in Ohio who doesn't have the option/ability to move to a tech hub like SF or NYC would've typically had to make due with the small pool of positions available to them locally, meaning less leverage for salary. If more companies allow remote however, they can now work at any of those, and the local companies will suddenly be forced to compete for talent.
- nmstoker 6y agoI'm pretty sure this would be illegal in the UK, the job pays what it pays and where you live shouldn't be a concern of the employer (the exception being if they base you abroad and you get relocation taken into account).
- nmstoker 6y agoAnther exception being if you're a public sector employee, there are certain accommodations made for living in London: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_weighting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_weighting
- bengale 6y agoSeems like a weird take on what a salary is to me. I don't know if this is an American thing, and linked to the way your benefits work, like health cover. But I don't see my employer as having any reason to know where I'm located (beyond timezone issues for working hours), or what lifestyle I support with the money they pay me. My salary is based on what price the market will bare for the services I provide, what I do with that money isn't really any of their business.
- smm2000 6y agoEmployers definitely need to know where you live to pay myriad of payroll taxes. if you lie, you commit tax fraud. It’s true virtually anywhere in the world - including all countries in Europe, not just US thing. You can often skirt law if you are small enough though - nobody cares about random web designer on upwork.
- luckylion 6y agoThat has nothing to do with the salary-question though. You could separate that completely (and many do via contractors: nobody asks a contractor where they live to set a price for their work): have one party in the company negotiate the salary, and have another deal with employee locations as required by law. Those two don't need to have any contact.
- humanrebar 6y agoSo the taxes and accounting expenses show up on your salary statement as a negative line item?
- luckylion 6y agoTaxes would be one of the legal requirements, yes. They are required and have a valid interest (as in "who are you, and how can we reach you?") to know where you live. "So we can figure out how much we need to pay you" is not a valid interest in my view. You're not getting paid to live in a certain area, you're getting paid to provide X hours of your time each week.
- microcolonel 6y agoBut salaries aren't a living allowance for living near the office, they're what you negotiate with your employer as compensation for your work. It's your business whether that's a lot or just enough for where you live. If your company cuts your pay because you moved, even though you already worked remotely with the same working hours, you have some deficiencies in your relationship to work out.
- pipework 6y agoIf facebook employees can't figure out some way to... I don't know, "Connect with friends, family and other people you know. Share photos and videos, send messages and get updates" they'd be able to organize and solve their problems. There's an incredible power in "No", but most of us aren't French and know very little about how to handle kings.
- Tade0 6y agoComing from a country(Poland) that may well be treated as one large outsourcing company (with the notable exception of CDPR and its whopping 1200 employees) here's my prediction on how this is going to play out: Salaries of remote employees will initially be made much lower according to some woefully inaccurate estimate of cost of living, but from that point on they will increase at a considerably faster rate than normal. Within a decade they will stabilise at a visibly lower than SV, yet still high level representing the true difference in cost of living - or actually - "cost of deciding not to live in SV". Eastern Europe experienced an amazing advance in IT compensations when the west figured out that the software engineers there are no worse than their local counterparts. In the case of SV's surroundings it's obvious that the engineers are talented, so I believe this process should be starting just now. Overall it's not that bad, because with time any incentive to move back to the high cost of living area fades. You won't be driving Teslas to work(chiefly because you won't be driving), but you'll enjoy a standard of living higher than a person employed in a local company, and that is nothing to sneer at.
- timwaagh 6y agoSV people are used to being able to afford a model S. Going to european level salaries (not being able to afford even a model 3) is going to be somewhat of a shock.
- m0zg 6y agoSeems like there's still MASSIVE room for arbitrage, just maybe not as massive as what people were hoping for. I.e. as long as you live in CA (which is not uniformly unaffordable) it'll be difficult for Zuck to argue that you should make a lot less. The price differential between "half an hour commute to the office" and "two hours one way" can be pretty staggering.
- slykar 6y agoTo be fair, you should be getting a proper adjustment for working from home, because the cost of the office is now on you. You use your own chair, desk, computer, living space, etc. So a % of your rent monthly + few $k on start as a care package.
- chris123 6y agoLocality Pay if standard. The federal government had been doing it for decades. Base pay plus locality adjustment based on where you live.
- znpy 6y agoWhat's the problem? Leave Facebook and join another company that doesn't apply such stupid rules.
- timwaagh 6y agoAnd so it begins, the downsizing of sillicon valley level salaries. Soon enough, they will be encouraging remote employees to move to inexpensive locations. Then they will start evaluating whether employees who come to office need to be there or can be encouraged to go remote.
- xtat 6y agoEasy- don't work for facebook. I have worked inside and outside the valley and never had a comp change
- xtat 6y agoSo basically employees outside the valley subsidize the rents of those that decide to stay. Who's gonna fall for this?
- rmc 6y agoFacebook employees should talk to their union about this.